Sight Unseen
by slyprentice
Summary: Will Graham is used to being called certifiable and regulated to the sidelines in any investigation. It's the nature of his gift, unfortunately; people are uncomfortable with what he can do and how he can do it, but that doesn't seem to apply when he meets Dr Hannibal Lecter, who seems just as fascinated with Will's gift as he is with Will himself.


**Title**: Sight Unseen  
**Author**: Prentice  
**Rating**: Mature  
**Pairing**: Will/Hannibal; one-sided Alana/Will  
**Category**: Alternate Universe - Psychic, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Horror, Angst, Dark  
**Warning**:Disturbing themes, disturbing imagery, implied cannibalism, possessive behavior, dubious consent, manipulation, and violence.  
**Author's Note**: _This is not a very happy story by any means. Most of the characters are either in a dark place, disturbed, or are what most people would consider real-life monsters in it. I don't make excuses for that or try to see the reason of it in this story. Mostly, I just try to cobble together what I consider to be a happy ending for them. So, please, read with that in mind. _

**Summary**: Will Graham is used to being called certifiable and regulated to the sidelines in any investigation. It's the nature of his gift, unfortunately; people are uncomfortable with what he can do and how he can do it, but that doesn't seem to apply when he meets Dr Hannibal Lecter, who seems just as fascinated with Will's gift as he is with Will himself.

* * *

**Sight Unseen**

_Chapter 1_

Will makes it a whole three steps into the apartment before he is overwhelmed. Or, rather, not overwhelmed, but just over inundated. Though it is only a small one bedroom unit on the first floor of the complex, it might as well have been grand central station for all the activity inside, and he's never really prepared for that kind of thing, no matter how hard he tries to be.

Hands curling loosely into fists at his sides, Will stands awkwardly as it all rushes towards him, like overeager children all wanting to show their father a new trick that they've just learned all at the same time:

In the corner, a little girl paints a vivid yellow sun onto a piece of paper covered in childish scribbling. In what passes for a kitchen, a frazzled looking college student dumps a packet of cheap instant coffee into a mug and stirs, eyes blood shot and puffy with too little sleep. In the short hallway that leads to the bedroom, a man is shoving his pants down around his knees as he places sloppy, open-mouthed kisses on a woman's exposed breasts, her bleach blond hair hiding her face. Beyond them, a man in an ill-fitting tuxedo fiddles with his bowtie, adjusting it as he stares at himself in a mirror at the end of hallway, over-gelled hair standing on end and looking like it'd be crunchy to the touch.

They are all there, all playing out before him. Not on an endless loop like some places, but continuing on, living their lives. As if they'd never…

Inhaling sharply, Will closes his eyes, the soft sounds of life still filling his ears, and concentrates on that vaguely uncomfortable heaviness that's just starting to grow behind his eyes. It is a familiar sensation to him, something he knows as intimately as he knows his own body, but he always struggles to slot it into place, always struggles to find balance with it.

Gritting his teeth, fingers flexing at his sides, he waits impatiently as it finally slides into place, scraping at the sides of his consciousness uncomfortably as it goes. Exhaling, he reaches inside himself, searching, until he finds what he's looking for: his workshop of mirrors. It is as he left it, with its tools and its endless wall that is covered with mirrors and more mirrors, all of them different, all of them crafted by his own imaginary hands.

Mind and body relaxing minutely, Will moves to his tools, and quickly begins to build another mirror. It is framed by plain wood that invisible hands carefully paint white, and has a small brass plaque that is stamped with the apartment number that he attaches to its base with practiced movements. Once done, he stares at the mirror, imaginary fingers sliding over its already dry painted frame, and then at its reflection.

Unlike other mirrors, real mirrors, it does not show his reflection, but rather an image of the apartment, completely empty and devoid of life. Bare, the way it should have been. The way he needed it to be.

Nodding, Will opens his eyes, keeping the mirror in the forefront of his mind as he flicks his gaze over the room and its occupants. They are all still there, of course; all of them continuing on with their unrelated tasks. There is a difference, though: they all seem removed, somehow.

Like he is watching them from some great distance, where he cannot hear or touch them even if he wanted to, and for a moment he just watches them, head tilting curiously to the side, before quickly – so quickly – a golden flash of light appears. It swishes across them with a flare, like a wiper blade on a windshield, and one by one they all start to disappear with every pass. First, the child and her painting, then the student, and eventually the rest of them, disappearing as if they had never been there in the first place, emptying out the apartment until nothing is left but cream colored walls and plain carpeted floors.

Eyes' closing once more, Will imagines his white-framed mirror again. Its reflection is not empty like it was before, but full of all the life he had seen cluttering up the apartment. The child in the corner has moved on to coloring in blue grass, the student has opened a packet of ramen, the amorous couple is fumbling with an unopened condom, and the man in the tux is posing like James Bond, fingers folded against each other into the shape of a gun.

Lips twitching into a weak smile, Will mentally hangs the mirror onto a never-ending wall, imaginary hands fixing it firmly onto the nearest empty space. Once it's settled and secure, he opens his eyes, the pressure behind his eyelids easing as he does. The apartment is still blessedly empty, a monotone cream white-on-white that is not soothing as much as boring.

It's a nice place, in as much as it's plain. But he could fix that. Make it lived-in again.

Turning unhurriedly toward the open doorway, Will stops and blinks at the man standing there. He is staring at Will, eyes wide, and shuffles uncomfortably when he realizes he's been caught. It is not the uneasy shuffle of a little boy having been caught stealing a cookie, but rather a man who thinks the person he is with will, at some point soon, do something violent.

Sighing, shoulders hunching, Will pushes his glasses up his nose. "Does your apartment complex allow pets, Mr. Sandson? Dogs, specifically?"

"I – uh, I'm afraid not, Mr. Graham," Mr. Sandson replies, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. He's a rotund little man, with khaki pants tight around the tops of his thighs and a polo shirt tucked into the waistband. For a moment, the sight of him makes Will want to suck in his own stomach, the phantom touch of his waistband loose against his skin. "We – um, that's to say, we did for a while but it got too expensive. If, um, if you have dogs you might do better looking for a house rental. Most of the places around here don't allow pets of any kind."

The way he says '_any kind'_ makes Will want to twitch, like there's a story there just beneath the surface that the man wants to share and would, if only he would ask about it. Will doesn't. Instead, he nods his head and leaves the apartment, ignoring the man's awkward scramble to get out of his way so they won't have to touch.

"I don't think I'll be taking the apartment, then," he says as he passes. He doesn't wait for a reply as he leaves, moving along the trimmed walkways hurriedly towards the car park. There are a few people milling around the outside of their apartments and just as he suspected they would, they surge towards Mr. Sandson as soon as he's a safe distance away, asking all the questions that Will's heard before:

"_What did he _do_?" "What did he _say_?" "Did he _see _something while he was in there?" "I read in the Tattler that he's _nuts_, completely certifiable, do you think-?" "Glad a _freak_ like him isn't going to be living here, thank god-" _

He never should have called ahead. That way, they wouldn't have had the time to find out he was coming. Either that or he should have taken Alana up on her offer to come with him. People didn't tend to notice him as much when he was with someone else, his personality being swallowed up by theirs.

Grimacing, he hurries the last few feet to his car, sliding into its familiar confines with a relieved huff. Fingers sliding beneath his glasses, he pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezing shut at the dull pain starting to make itself known behind his eyeballs. In a few minutes, he'll need to dry swallow a couple of aspirin if he doesn't want a full blown migraine.

Hand falling to his lap, he waits for a moment before starting his car, the hic-coughing sound of the engine making him wish that he was back in Louisiana, with his box full of tools and no one out to bother him. But that time is long gone. Dead in a way that most things aren't for him anymore.

Shaking out a few aspirin from the bottle he keeps in the glove compartment, he crunches on them as he pulls out of the parking lot. He doesn't look back as he leaves, doesn't want to see the people who have probably come out to see him go or snap a picture of him before he's gone. Instead, he concentrates on merging with the evening traffic, heading back toward the motel room he and Winston have been staying at while he looks for a new place, one that won't haunt him with shadows of a past he can't erase.

~0~

The worst place in the motel is the bathroom. Not just because it smells vaguely of mildew and old urine, but because the junkie who'd OD'd there didn't like living in the motel's mirror-image in Will's mind. No matter how hard he tries, she always leaks back out, sitting on the piss-stained toilet whenever he's in there, Hello Kitty belt tied around her upper arm, needle still in her as she slowly slides down the wall and off the toilet.

Sweat beads off her skin as her eyes glaze over in her head, lips loose and open so that he can see her missing teeth. She might have been a pretty girl once, before all this; might have been a prom queen or a grocery store clerk. Here and now, though, in this stinking bathroom, she looks like a used piece of tissue, pathetic and crumpled up, tossed away to be forgotten by everyone. With the exception, maybe, of Will, who can't help but see her like he can't help but see everything anymore.

Gaze shying away from her, he finishes brushing his teeth, glasses folded carefully on the counter, and takes comfort in the phantom-touch of a dog leaning against his leg. Tomorrow he will look for another place to live. Tonight – tonight, he'll work on trying not to dream in the bed where several couples will endlessly have sex and one man will be murdered in the mirror in his mind.

_TBC_


End file.
